Charles Lapworth FRS FGS (20 September 1842 – 13 March 1920) was a headteacher and an English geologist[1] who pioneered faunal analysis using index fossils and identified the Ordovician period.

He moved to the Scottish border region, where he investigated the previously little-known fossil fauna of the area.

[4] He completed this pioneering research in the Southern Uplands while employed as a schoolmaster for 11 years at the Episcopal Church school, Galashiels.

Following his researches in the Southern Uplands Charles Lapworth also devoted time to mapping near Durness in Scotland's northwest highlands and was first to propose the controversial theory that here older rocks were found lying above younger, suggesting complex folding or faulting as a cause.

[6] Again Peach and Horne, surveying in Dundonnell Forest, confirmed Lapworths's suggestion, finding Olenelloid fossils in the fucoid beds of the Durness-Eriboll series.

[18] In 1899, he received the highest award of the Geological Society of London, the Wollaston Medal, in recognition of his outstanding work in the Southern Uplands, and Northwest Highlands of Scotland.

[19] The glacial Lake Lapworth, was named for him by Leonard Johnston Wills in recognition of his original suggestion of its existence in 1898.